BAGHDAD, January 2 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – After scrutinizing inspection of 230 sites across Iraq, U.N. experts failed to find any evidence of alleged weapons of mass destruction while the United States continued its massive military buildup for a "war of aggression".

As Iraq announced Thursday, January 2, that chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix will visit Baghdad in the third week of January, a leading British newspaper reported that the Pentagon was finalizing plans to wage war against Iraq even before completing the American build-up.

"Blix is to visit Baghdad in the third week of January," said General Hossam Mohammad Amin, who heads Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, the body that liaises with the UN inspectors, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"This visit is a positive step ... I think the visit could lead to an improvement in the relationship between the United Nations and Iraq," Amin told a press conference.

Talks with Blix would focus on how to best apply U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 on disarmament.

Amin added there was no exact date for the visit, but reiterated Baghdad's wish to avert war.

"We are always optimistic, we believe in God, and we believe that our case is right and that we should find peaceful solutions," he said.

The invitation come ahead of a report Blix is to present to the U.N. Security Council on January 27 on Iraq's cooperation with the U.N. inspectors.

Even as he reaffirmed Iraq has no prohibited weapons, Amin made clear Iraq was not afraid of armed conflict.

"We are preparing for every case, for every probability," he said.

"We hope that the international community will understand that Iraq will resist any aggression."

Experts from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had so far visited 230 suspect sites since the resumption of inspections, 37 of which had not been checked previously by U.N. inspectors, Amin said.

U.N. experts, who arrived in Iraq on November 25, have been able to visit all the sites they have wanted to inspect and "will visit whatever sites they want to visit," Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz stressed earlier Thursday.

Despite that fact, the "American military deployment has been going on ... They continue their preparation for a war of aggression," Aziz said.

"There is an imperialist design behind all the fuss that has been created by Washington, and that design is to invade Iraq, to occupy Iraq, and to use the national resources of Iraq for the purposes of the (U.S.) military industrial complex, for the purposes of the capitalist regime," he charged.

Aziz (R) walks with Carlos Varia (L), head of the Spanish peace team.

"America has been using all pretexts about so-called weapons of mass destruction to tell the American people and other people, specially in Europe, that Iraq constitutes a threat," Aziz said.

"But Iraq has never constituted a threat to Europe or to the United States in all its history."

In a separate meeting with a visiting delegation of Spanish peace activists, Aziz said that the "Spanish government's stance of support for U.S. aggression against Iraq is politically and morally wrong," expressing hope that Madrid would "revise its position."

Arms inspectors visited seven sites Thursday, the 34th day of their search for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, according to U.N. spokesman Hiro Ueki.

Meanwhile, a 13-member group of U.S. religious leaders, led by the National Council of Churches (NCC) warned that a "war against Iraq will make the U.S. less secure, not more secure."

In Crawford, Texas, Bush told reporters Thursday he was "hopeful" of averting a war with Iraq but warned Saddam Hussein that "his day of reckoning" is looming.

"I am hopeful we won't have to go to war," Bush told reporters, adding: "let's leave it at that until Saddam Hussein makes up his mind to disarm."

"And now he's got to understand his day of reckoning is coming, and therefore, he must disarm voluntarily. I hope he does," Bush said.

According to the Times news paper of Thursday, thousands of U.S. army combat troops will begin heading for the Gulf within days, starting a concerted military build-up that will double the size of U.S. forces within striking distance of Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has signed a directive ordering elite troops, infantry brigades, aircraft carrier groups and air force combat squadrons to prepare to move, said the paper.

The first to move will be 15,000 troops from 3rd Infantry Division in Fort Stewart and Fort Benning, Georgia, who are specialists in desert fighting, it added.

According to the Times, this will be the first deployment of a full combat division of U.S. forces, including tanks and attack helicopters, to the region since the 1991 Gulf War.

Mr Rumsfeld’s 20-plus page document brings into the open the final stages of a build-up of U.S. military might in the region which has been continuing steadily for months.

Pentagon is finalizing plans that would see the initial stages of a war fought before the U.S. had completed its build-up.

Some 75,000 U.S. troops would be involved in the initial stages, but up to 250,000 reinforcements would join them later.

Meanwhile, the U.S. army is bringing together commanders of key combat divisions for a war game in Germany this month under the general who would likely lead the army's ground forces in the event of war against Iraq, army officials said.

Dubbed "Victory Scrimmage," the exercise will involve more than 1,000 military personnel at the army's training center at Graffenwohr, Germany, a spokesman for the army's Heidelberg-based V Corps.

The command has a forward headquarters in Kuwait, positioning it to lead the army's ground forces if President Bush orders an invasion of Iraq.

UNMOVIC has agreed to meet with Arab experts who have applied to take part in the inspections, the Arab League said here Thursday.

It will meet one group of Arab candidates on January 6 in New York, and another group on January 7 in Paris, an Arab League official, Ali Jarush, told reporters.

Jarush, who is in charge of the Iraqi dossier at the Cairo-based pan-Arab organization, said 15 Arab experts had applied to join the inspectors of UNMOVIC and the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAEA) to verify Iraq's assertion that it has no weapons of mass destruction.

Seven are from Algeria, four from Jordan, three from Lebanon and one from Tunisia, he said.

UNMOVIC will meet the Algerians in Paris and the others in New York, he said, adding that the IAEA has not replied to the Arab League's request for more Arab experts to be included in its inspections team.

IAEA director Mohamed El-Baradei is an Egyptian national.